One of the fun things that Brandee and I have enjoyed doing recently is going and walking around the local flea market. We don’t go to ever buy anything really, we just leisurely browse the stands and enjoy being in the nice sunshine together.
One of the fun things that Brandee and I have enjoyed doing recently is going and walking around the local flea market. We don’t go to ever buy anything really, we just leisurely browse the stands and enjoy being in the nice sunshine together. An odd thing that we did discovered, and which is very surprising, is that for the few items which we did actually ask about the price, it turns out that the flea market price was higher than you would expect for things that you can find at regular stores. I always thought that the flea market was for cheaper things but we hadn’t been in a while. Things have really changed and I don’t know why anyone would want to pay more for flea market items that are exactly that same that you can get cheaper and elsewhere??? Anyhow, there must be some logic for this that we don’t understand.
Capital Drive-In Flea Market
There are two rather famous flea markets organized in San Jose. We generally go to the smaller of the two. The Capital Drive-In Flea Market is held at, as you can imagine, a Drive-In Theater Parking Lot. Many years ago there was no such flea market at the drive-in but I can probably guess that this is now a good portion of their revenue as less and less people tend to go to drive-in movies.
I’ve also really enjoyed reconnecting with my friends again for little things like a business lunch. Although we do talk a little bit of business, we mostly talk about life, family, sports and sometimes politics. After being confined to the house mostly and not being able to drive for seven months, this little luxury of socializing with friends is that even more of a pleasure.
I continue to make good progress from my ankle injury from last September. I only started driving and walking again about two months ago! It’s really amazing that the human body is so fragile, yet resilient at the same time. I thank God every day for his great blessings and healing. I thank God for the tremendous skill and honesty of the surgeons as well as everyone else that took care of me in those delicate times. The Lord truly does perform miracles.
While I was always confident that I would eventually walk again, as bad as the injury was, I really had no concept of what permanent damage I might have done. Fortunately, the only side effects nine months later are a slight limp, but nothing serious. I do have three, large titanium plates and 14 screws in my ankle that may cause arthritis in the future so I have to be diligent to continue and do a lot of exercise to regain more range-of-motion. Overall this is not a bad condition at all.
A strange side effect is that I enjoy the simple task of standing on my own two feet and I enjoy long walks with no particular destination in mind. I just go and stroll around the flea market, go window-shopping at the local mall or just walk around the house aimlessly. I really do have a greater appreciation for good health.
After another rather mild California spring weather-wise, we are gearing up for summertime activities of BBQ, going to the beach and other fun social events with our friends. This year, in particular, I think we will appreciate the simplest of activities more than ever because we had been so restricted on what we could do since my ankle injury last September.
Brandee loves to cook and host events so I’m sure that we will be having our fair share of BBQ’s at our home which I look forward to very much. Another thing we are really looking forward to is taking Jack to the beach and let him walk in the sand. He has never been so we’re not sure if he will like it or not but we want him to experience this anyhow. He is a Labrador Retriever breed so typically they like the water and sand. We think he will like it and it will bring him a lot of joy in his life so we look forward to a trip to Santa Cruz sometime soon.
Brandee and I continue enjoying being parents to our two dogs (Jack and Gracie) and one cat (Bleu). They are all a constant source of entertainment for us each and every day. Jack is getting much slower and less active in his old age but he seems happy and that’s what matters. We always give him extra special attention as he is the senior citizen of our bunch and he has to put up with two young sisters. He is a super good big brother to both Gracie and Bleu and we are so very proud of him.
Gracie is the one that is most obnoxious because she is always full of energy and getting into trouble. It’s just her spirit to be this way and it’s actually quite funny because her personality is 100+ miles-per minute where Jack is so laid-back and relaxed that it’s quite an interesting dynamic between the two of them. Gracie keeps Brandee busy nearly all day long which is very entertaining for me.
Bleu, on the other hand, just minds her own business a good majority of the time. Although Bleu is an indoor-outdoor cat, so she can come and go as she pleases, it gives us great comfort that mostly she likes to just hang out in our backyard and rarely wander off anywhere outside of our yard. It’s quite strange for a cat but it’s good to know that she’s safe.
Kevin Neal from California (in the news) – #NotThatKevinNeal
I need to make a quick Public Service Announcement before I get into my Life Updates. I am not THAT Kevin Neal.
On November 14th, 2017 there was a truly awful shooting where a lunatic, coincidently enough, named Kevin Neal and, also coincidently enough, was from California murdered several innocent people. I do not know this person, never have and never will. I feel such sadness for his victims and pray that they rest in peace.
KevinNeal.com Website Visitors Per Day
Not to make light of this awful tragedy but one rather strange thing that happened is overnight my Facebook and this Blog was of high interest all of a sudden. In fact, I bet some of you reading my words right now are just curious people. I admit that I sometimes do the same. Anyhow I met a few people on Facebook that just said a friendly hello so that was fairly cool to see the decency of people in such times. Just take a look at the drastic spike in my Blog traffic and you can clearly see when the news hit on 11/14.
………….and now that this Public Service Announcement is over, let us turn you to the regularly scheduled Kevin Neal Life Update…………
Ankle Recovery
It’s been nearly two full months since I sustained my rather serious ankle injury on September 23rd, 2017. As I’ve expressed many times before, this injury certainly could have been much worse so I’m absolutely not going to complain about much. However, being in a hard cast for all this time is getting super annoying. I obviously still can’t drive and won’t be able to for months still. I can’t even start rehab yet because the bones are still mending. The good news is that at my last check-up with the doctor he said the x-ray looked pretty good and we are ahead of the original schedule.
I still will be in a hard cast for another three weeks and then hopefully a removal boot. Rehab might start after the being of the new year. Oh vie!!! There isn’t so much pain any more but the hassle of doing every little thing that takes so much longer and planning is about on my last nerve. Things like this really make a person humble and also make you appreciate everything that is so good about being healthy. I’ll just continue trying to be positive and do my best to get through because there isn’t much I can do to accelerate my healing.
Cloud Computing Technical Training
Cloud Computing Knowledge
Although I’m not completely stuck at home with my ankle injury and I manage to get out for about one or two meetings per week, I’ve been spending most of my ‘downtime’ being as productive as can be. I want to take full advantage of my time and utilize it for productive things. Therefore, I have been doing a ton of research, training and experimenting on many new technical technologies. It is true that there is so many new things, new concepts, new vendors, new approaches and such that it will be impossible for anyone to ever fully grasp all this knowledge. As I have always appreciated when others share their knowledge with me; I like to reciprocate and share my knowledge with them. This is absolutely required more than ever and not only when it comes to technology itself but also how business is done. Business has to be more agile, nimble and willing to change more than ever because consumers are empowered like never before.
For these reasons, I feel that if I can gain valuable personal knowledge, with hands-on learning, for such things as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure Cloud and others then I sincerely hope I can accelerate the overall knowledge of my colleagues, friends as well as our valued clients. My brain is certainly on overload right now from all the learning I’ve been doing but it feels great and I feel that 80% is sinking in already. I’m immediately being able to put a lot of this learning into practical use. This other 20% is still somewhat foreign to me and I can only hope that knowledge transfer can help everyone work together and reach their full potential.
Working Hard
It has always been a personal work character trait of mine to work even harder while others relax. It could be coincidence or by conscience decision but so much of my work history has been working with people in other countries, and time zones, that I often work unnatural hours late at night or early mornings. Or it could be that so much of my work is being creative with marketing activities or critical thinking with technical work, that it just helps me concentrate and be more productive in downtimes. Or it could be that I’m just a workaholic like my wonderful dad was 😊.
Whatever the case maybe I double my efforts during the holiday season to really digest everything from the past year and get organized with a solid plan for the future. I simply hate waiting for things to happen so while people stuff their faces with Turkey and participate in all the fun activities, I’m generally spending my time writing a plan, creating some marketing materials or planning a communication in some capacity or another. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy having fun during the holidays and like time to relax a bit but it just gets old for me rather quick and I would rather spend my time in the present bettering my life in the future.
Business is super good and our plan is coming along ahead of schedule. We planned well to be ahead of the onslaught of ‘cloud computing’ crush and now our Company is positioned extremely well with excellent knowledge, great solutions and a fantastic business plan. We have the right People, Process and Policy all in-place for a successful outcome and we can’t be any more excited about the upcoming year!
Crazy FurrBalls and a Change of Season
(Back-to-Front) Jack, Gracie and Bleu
Jack, Gracie and Bleu continue to provide a ton of comic relief at the Neal Casa. Brandee and I can already tell that the turn of seasons from fall to winter is not going to be an easy one for Gracie and Bleu especially. Jack is old-hat at the seasonal changes but Gracie is inexperienced as she just turned 1-year old a few weeks ago. And for Bleu, since she was born in the March-April 2017 timeframe, the dew on the grass or the rain drops from heaven are all new, exciting (and sometimes treacherous) challenges for her to overcome.
For our best guy, Jackson, he continues to provide sanity and wisdom for his rambunctious sisters. Once in a while he’ll get in a playful mood and have a little rough-house fun with Gracie. On the other hand, Jack and Bleu rarely interact with each other. They just act as if each other didn’t exist. Jack is such a good boy with his little sisters and he’s so gentle with them. One thing that is for sure is that poor Jack still does miss his older sissy, the beautiful Bella, as do both Brandee and I. Bella was such a precious and unique little furry, fluff of fun. She filled our hearts with joy and the pain of losing her in April is still tremendous and probably will never cease. Jack, Brandee and I are at peace that our lovely Bella-Ringa is healthy and happy at Rainbow Bridge.
Preparing for the Holidays
Bleu Neal – Halloween Spirit
Well it’s that exciting time of the year where, once again, where the months of October-December become all smashed together in a blurry haze with so many birthdays, holidays and just overall busyness going on. This year is no exception with Halloween already have flown by and Thanksgiving upon us in just a few days. It’s the time of year when Brandee over thinks plans for Thanksgiving and plans a meal for an army. I kid but it’s great fun for her and she says relaxing but I can’t imagine so as it seems like so much work! Nevertheless, she has fun and enjoys doing it so it’s all worth it in the long run.
I think this time of year is very special for Brandee in particular. She loves so many of the great qualities of the holiday spirit including spending time with family and friends, children running around crazily everywhere and the general good-vibe that the holidays bring. She can careless about the commercialism that the season brings but there is so much more positive than just minor annoyances.
Here’s to wishing everyone a great, safe and enjoyable Holiday Season!!!
